The Leeds carnival is an amazing celebration which incorporates all three essential elements of authentic West Indian carnival: costumes, music and masquerade procession. It is one of the longest running West Indian Carnivals in Europe and began in 1967, therefore, marking the milestone 50th anniversary in 2017. On this special occasion, the carnival exceeded the expectations of the public, and the crowds of people gathered. It brought an explosion of
I commenced my secondment with Touchstone at the beginning of July for a period of three months. It was an opportunity to explore different ways of working and to form better links between Touchstone Community Support Team (CST) and the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). On my first day the Chief Executive, Alison, came and welcomed me to Touchstone and I met with Operations Director, Jim. I had met most
Would you like to do something to mark World Mindfulness Day or are you are curious what mindfulness is all about? Mindfulness is a fairly simple idea about how we direct our focus of attention, but like many things that may sound simple, it can be a little tricky to actually do! The basic principles of mindfulness are about: Paying attention to the present moment On purpose Without judgement For
World Suicide Prevention Day – 10th September 2017 “Take a minute, change a life” Every year, nearly 1 million people die by suicide and up to 20 times as many make a suicide attempt. Behind these statistics are the individual stories of those who have, for many different reasons, questioned the value of their own lives. Each one of these individuals is part of a community. Some may be well
10th September is World Suicide Prevention Day. According to the Alliance of Suicide Prevention Charities (TASC), suicide is the greatest cause of death amongst young men (15-44) in the UK as well as many young women too. Every four minutes someone in the UK tries to kill themselves and every hour and a half someone succeeds.Research from the Office of National Statistics that was published in 2016, shows women’s suicide has
This is our FIRST blog post, WOW! It genuinely feels a pleasure to be able to talk about what we are, what we do and who we are here to help. The Café opened late last year (October 2016) and has slowly built up a head of steam, with the number of visitors we have received so far increasing slowly and surely, being more busy as we go. We are
Advocacy is all about helping people who use services to speak up, to be heard and to have influence – in other words to be involved in their own lives and in anything that impacts on their lives. Touchstone’s Kirklees Advocacy Service was designed from the ground up to achieve that. Here’s some of the ways that the service helped people to get more involved during 2016-2017 1. Involvement in
New Wortley Community Association (NWCA) has been successful in securing a grant to develop an exciting Community Led Housing project in West Leeds. This is a positive boost for the local community and builds upon the success of a number of other initiatives which NWCA already have up and running in the area. This local charity has major ambitions to improve the quality of life of residents of New Wortley.
Once again this year Touchstone staff celebrated all that is “Pink” about Leeds during Pride 2017. Not only did staff march tall with our Pink Pals banner in the parade, we also had a stall in partnership with Leeds Mind and Community Links to raise awareness of mental health amongst the LGBT+ and non-LGBT communities in Leeds and beyond. The day began for us at 9am but, with our mental
On 6th July 2017, Touchstone hosted Leeds’ second coproduction conference. This time to coincide with national coproduction week. The aims of the conference were 3 fold: To shine a light on the existing examples of coproduction in the region To introduce more people to the “I Statements” and their place in mental health commissioning in Leeds To start the process of developing a coproduction kitemark for Leeds (and hopefully wider) by establishing a